Mrs. Warren's Daughter Part 23

Vivie, even had she wished to do so, could not have joined the sight-seers. As the subjects of an enemy power she and her mother had had early in January to register themselves at the Kommandantur and were there warned that without a special pa.s.sport they might not pa.s.s beyond the limits of Brussels and its suburbs. Except in the matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order--she had an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes for raising the Irish against the British Government. Von Giesselin however was becoming sentimentally inclined towards her and she saw no more of him than was necessary to maintain polite relations. Frau von Giesselin, for various reasons of health or children, could not join him at Brussels as so many German wives had done with other of the high functionaries (to the great embitterment of Brussels society); and there were times when von Giesselin's protestations of his loneliness alarmed her.

The King of Saxony had paid a visit to Brussels in the late autumn of 1914 and had invited this Colonel of his Army to a fastuous banquet given at the Palace Hotel. The King--whom the still defiant Brussels Press, especially that unkillable _La Libre Belgique_, reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra--was gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or French subjects, stranded in Brussels, and sometimes asked Vivie about fellow-countrymen who sought this intervention.

This caused her complicated annoyances. Seeing there was some hope in interesting her in their cases, these English governesses, tutors, clerks, tailors' a.s.sistants and cutters, music-hall singers, grooms appealed to Vivie to support their pet.i.tions. They paid her or her mother a kind of base court, on the tacit a.s.sumption that she--Vivie--had placed Colonel von Giesselin under special obligations. If in rare instances, out of sheer pity, she took up a case and von Giesselin granted the pet.i.tion or had it done in a higher quarter, his action was clearly a personal favour to her; and the very pet.i.tioners went away, with the ingrat.i.tude common in such cases, and spread the news of Vivie's privileged position at the Hotel Imperial. It was not surprising therefore that in the small circles of influential British or American people in Brussels she was viewed with suspicion or contempt. She supported this odious position at the Hotel Imperial as long as possible, in the hope that Colonel von Giesselin when he had realized the impossibility of using herself or her mother in any kind of intrigue against the British Government would do what the American Consul General professed himself unable or unwilling to do: obtain for them pa.s.sports to proceed to Holland.

Von Giesselin, from December, 1914, took up among other duties that of Press Censor and officer in charge of Publicity. After the occupation of Brussels and the fall of Antwerp, the "patriotic"

Belgian Press had withdrawn itself to France and England or had stopped publication. Its newspapers had been invited to continue their functions as organs of news-distribution and public opinion, but of course under the German Censorate and martial law. As one editor said to a polite German official: "If I were to continue the publication of my paper under such conditions, my staff and I would all be shot in a week."

But the large towns of Belgium could not be left without a Press.

Public Opinion must be guided, and might very well be guided in a direction favourable to German policy. The German Government had already introduced the German hour into Belgian time, the German coinage, the German police system, and German music; but it had no intention, seemingly, of forcing the German speech on the old dominions of the House of Burgundy. On the contrary, in their tenure of Belgium or of North-east France, the Germans seemed desirous of showing how well they wrote the French language, how ready they were under a German regime to give it a new literature. Whether or not they enlisted a few recreants, or made use of Alsatians or Lorrainers to help them, it is never-the-less remarkable how free as a rule their written and printed French was from mistakes or German idioms; though their spoken French always remained Alsatian. It suffered from that extraordinary misplacement and exchange in the upper and lower consonants which has distinguished the German people--that nation of great philologists--since the death of the Roman Empire. German officers still said "Barton, die fous brie,"

instead of "Pardon, je vous prie" (if they were polite), but they were quite able to contribute _articles de fond_ to a pretended national Belgian press. Besides there was a sufficiency of Belgian "Sans-Patries" ready to come to their a.s.sistance: Belgian nationals of German-Jewish or Dutch-Jewish descent, who in the present generation had become Catholic Christians as it ranged them with the best people. They were worthy and wealthy Belgian citizens, but presumably would not have deeply regretted a change in the political destinies of Belgium, provided international finance was not adversely affected. There were also a few Belgian Socialists--a few, but enough--who took posts under the German provisional government, on the plea that until you could be purely socialistic it did not matter under what flag you drew your salary.

Von Giesselin was most benevolently intentioned, in reality a kind-hearted man, a sentimentalist. Not quite prepared to go to the stake himself in place of any other victim of Prussian cruelty, but ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences.

(There were others like him--Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian, Wurttembergisch--or the German occupation of Belgium might have ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they slew their oppressors.) He hoped through the pieces played at the theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the Belgians round to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of existence under the German Empire. But his efforts brought down on him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois. They were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music, need not at the same time excite a military spirit or convey the least allusion of an impertinent or contemptuous kind towards the Central Powers. Thus the couplets

"Dans le service de l'Autriche Le militaire n'est pas riche"

were changed to

"Dans le service de la Suisse Le militaire n'est pas riche."

These pa.s.sionate lines of a political exile:

"A l'etranger un pacte impie Vendait mon sang, liait ma foi, Mais a present, o ma patrie Je pourrai done mourir pour toi!"

were rendered harmless as

"A l'etranger, en reverie Chaque jour je pleurais sur toi Mais a present, o ma patrie Je penserai sans cesse a toi!"

The pleasure he took in recasting this doggerel--calling in Vivie to help him as presumably a good scholar in French--got on her nerves, and she was hard put to it to keep her temper.

Sometimes he proposed that she should take a hand, even become a salaried subordinate; compose articles for his subsidized paper, "_L'Ami de l'Ordre_" (nicknamed "L'Ami de L'Ordure" by the Belgians), "_La Belgique_," "_Le Bruxellois_," "_Vers la Paix_."

He would allow her a very free hand, so long as she did not attack the Germans or their allies or put in any false news about military or naval successes of the foes of Central Europe. She might, for instance, dilate on the cruel manner in which the Woman Suffragists had been persecuted in England; give a description of forcible feeding or of police ferocity on Black Friday.

Vivie declined any such propositions. "I have told you already, and often," she said, "I am deeply grateful for all you have done for my mother and me. We might have been in a far more uncomfortable position but for your kindness. But I cannot in any way a.s.sociate myself with the German policy here. I cannot pretend for a moment to condone what you do in this country. If I were a Belgian woman I should probably have been shot long ago for a.s.sa.s.sinating some Prussian official--I can hardly see von Bissing pa.s.s in his automobile, as it is, without wishing I had a bomb. But there it is.

It is no business of mine. As I can't get away, as you won't let us go out of the country--Switzerland, Holland--and as I don't want to go mad by brooding, find something for me to do that will occupy my thoughts: and yet not implicate me with the Germans. Can't I go and help every day in your hospitals? If you'll continue your kindness to mother--and believe me"--she broke off--"I _do_ appreciate what you have done for us. I shall _never_ forget I have met _one true German gentleman_--if you'll continue to be as kind as before, you will simply give instructions that mother is in no way disturbed or annoyed. There are Germans staying here who are odious beyond belief. If they meet my mother outside her room they ask her insulting questions--whether she can give them the addresses of--of--light women ... you know the sort of thing. I have always been outspoken with you. All I ask is that mother shall be allowed to stay in her own room while I am out, and have her meals served there. But the hotel people are beginning to make a fuss about the trouble, the lack of waiters. A word from you--And then if my mind was at ease about her I could go out and do some good with the poor people. They are getting very restive in the Marolles quarter--the shocking bad bread, the lack of fuel--Most of all I should like to help in the hospitals. My own countrywomen will not have me in theirs. They suspect me of being a spy in German pay. Besides, your von Bissing has ordered now that all Belgian, British, and French wounded shall be taken to the German Red Cross. Well: if you want to be kind, give me an introduction there. Surely it would be bare humanity on your part to let an Englishwoman be with some of those poor lads who are sorely wounded, dying perhaps"--she broke down--"The other day I followed two of the motor ambulances along the Boulevard d'Ans.p.a.ch. Blood dripped from them as they pa.s.sed, and I could hear some English boy trying to sing 'Tipperary--'"

"My _tear_ Miss Warren--I will try to do all that you want--You will not do _anything I_ want, but never mind. I will show you that Germans can be generous. I will speak about your mother. I am sorry that there are bad-mannered Germans in the hotel. There are some--what-you-call 'bounders'--among us, as there are with you. It is to be regretted. As to our Red Cross hospitals, I know of a person who can make things easy for you. I will write a letter to my cousin--like me she is a Saxon and comes from Leipzig--Minna von Stachelberg. She is but a few months widow, widow of a Saxon officer, Graf von Stachelberg who was killed at Namur. Oh! it was very sad; they were but six months married. Afterwards she came here to work in our Red Cross--I think now she is in charge of a ward..."

So Vivie found a few months' reprieve from acute sorrow and bitter humiliation. Grafin von Stachelberg was as kind in her way as her cousin the Colonel, but much less sentimental. In fact she was of that type of New German woman, taken all too little into account by our Press at the time of the War. There were many like her of the upper middle cla.s.s, the professorial cla.s.s, the lesser n.o.bility to be found not only in Leipzig but in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, Halle, Bonn, Munchen, Hannover, Bremen, Jena, Stuttgart, Cologne--nice to look at, extremely modern in education and good manners, tasteful in dress, speaking English marvellously well, highly accomplished in music or with some other art, advocates of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. The War came just too soon. Had Heaven struck down that epilept Emperor and a few of his ministers, had time been given for the New German Woman to a.s.sert herself in politics, there would have been no invasion of Belgium, no maltreatment of Servia. Germany would have ranged herself with the Western powers and Western culture.

Minna von Stachelberg read her cousin's note and received the worn and anxious-looking Vivie like a sister ... like a comrade, she said, in the War for the Vote ... "which we will resume, my dear, as soon as this dreadful Man's war is over, only we won't fight with the same weapons."

But though kind, she was not gushing and she soon told Vivie that in nursing she was a novice and had much to learn. She introduced her to the German and Belgian surgeons, and then put her to a series of entirely menial tasks from which she was to work her way up by degrees. But if any English soldier were there and wanted sympathy, she should be called in to his ward ... From that interview Vivie returned almost happy.

In the hot summer months she would sometimes be allowed to accompany Red Cross surgeons and nurses to the station, when convoys of wounded were expected, if there was likelihood that British soldiers would be amongst them. These would cheer up at the sound of her pleasant voice speaking their tongue. Yet she would witness on such occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality. Once there came out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends evidently. They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp. At that moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face. The Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear.

Alarums! Excursions! A German officer rushed up to enquire while the Frenchman was struggling with two colossal German military policemen and the Englishman was striving to free him. Vivie explained to the officer what had occurred. He bowed and saluted: seized the soldier-spitter by the collar and kicked him so frightfully that Vivie had to implore him to cease.

Moreover the Red Placards of von Bissing were of increasing frequency. As a rule Vivie only heard what other people said of them, and that wasn't very much, for German spies were everywhere, inviting you to follow them to the dreaded Kommandantur in the Rue de la Loi--a scene of as much in the way of horror and mental anguish as the Conciergerie of Paris in the days of the Red Terror.

But some cheek-blanching rumour she had heard on a certain Monday in October caused her to look next day on her way home at a fresh Red Placard which had been posted up in a public place. The daylight had almost faded, but there was a gas lamp which made the notice legible. It ran:

CONd.a.m.nATIONS

Par jugement du 9 Octobre, 1915, le tribunal de campagne a p.r.o.nonce les cond.a.m.nations suivantes pour trahison commise pendant l'etat de guerre (pour avoir fait pa.s.ser des recrues a l'ennemi):

1 Philippe BAUCQ, architecte a Bruxelles;

2 Louise THULIEZ, professeur a Lille;

3 Edith CAVELL, directrice d'un inst.i.tut medical a Bruxelles;

4 Louis SEVERIN, pharmacien a Bruxelles;

5 Comtesse JEANNE DE BELLEVILLE, a Montignies.

a LA PEINE DE MORT

Vivie then went on to read with eyes that could hardly take in the words a list of other names of men and women condemned to long terms of hard labour for the same offence--a.s.sisting young Belgians to leave the Belgium that was under German occupation. And further, the information that of the five condemned to death, _Philip Bauck_ and _Edith Cavell_ had already been _executed_.

The monsters! Oh that von Bissing. How gladly she would die if she might first have the pleasure of killing him! That pompous old man of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that wherever he pa.s.sed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted with Eastern servility, who boasted of his "tender heart," so that he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split the tongues of finches to make them sing better. Edith Cavell--she did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women--but Edith Cavell, directress of a nursing home in Brussels, known far and wide for her goodness of heart. She had held aloof from Vivie, but was that to be wondered at when there was so much to make her suspect--living, seemingly, under the protection of a German official? But the very German nurses and doctors at the Red Cross hospital had spoken of her having given free treatment in her Home to Germans who needed immediate operations, and for whom there was no room in the military hospitals--And for such a trivial offence as _that_--and to kill her before there could be any appeal for reconsideration or clemency. Oh _what_ a nation! She would tend their sick and wounded no more.

She hurried on up the ascent of the Boulevard of the Botanic Garden on her way to the Rue Royale. She burst into von Giesselin's office.

He was not there. A clerk looking at her rather closely said that the Herr Oberst was packing, was going away. Vivie scarcely took in the meaning of his German phrases. She waited there, her eyes ablaze, feeling she must tell her former friend and protector what she thought of his people before she renounced any further relations with him.

Presently he entered, his usually rather florid face pale with intense sorrow or worry, his manner preoccupied. She burst out: "_Have_ you seen the Red Placard they have just put up?"

"What about?" he said wearily.

"The a.s.sa.s.sination by your Government of Edith Cavell, a crime for which England--yes, and America--will _never_ forgive you.... From this moment I--"

"But have you not heard what has happened to _me_? I am _dismissed_ from my post as Secretary, I am ordered to rejoin my regiment in Lorraine--It is very sad about your Miss Cavell. I knew nothing of it till this morning when I received my own dismissal--And _oh_ my dear Miss, I fear we shall never meet again."

"Why are they sending you away?" asked Vivie drily, compelled to interest herself in his affairs since they so closely affected her own and her mother's.

"Because of this," said von Giesselin, nearly in tears, pulling from a small portfolio a press cutting. "Do you remember a fortnight ago I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the time and you said--you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem to have much point.'" Vivie did remember having glanced very perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed un.o.bjectionable piffle. She hadn't cared two straws whether he accepted it or not, only did not want to be too markedly indifferent. Now she took it up and still read it through uncomprehendingly, her thoughts absent with the fate of Miss Cavell.

"Well! what is all the fuss about? I still see nothing in it. It is just simply the ordinary sentimental flip-flap that a French versifier can turn out by the yard."

"It is _far_ worse than that! It is a horrible--what the French call 'acrostiche,' a deadly insult to our people. And I never saw it, the Editor never saw it, and you, even, never guessed its real meaning![1] The original, as you say, was in typewriting, and at the bottom was the name and address of a very well-known homme de lettres: and the words: 'Offert a la redaction de l'Ami de L'Ordre.'

He say now, _never never_ did he send it. It was a forgery. When we came to understand what it meant all the blame fall on me. I am sent back to the Army--I shall be killed before Verdun, so good-bye dear Miss--We have been good friends. Oh this War: this d-r-r-eadful War--It has spoilt everything. Now we can never be friends with England again."

[Footnote 1: I have obtained a copy and give it here as it had an almost historical importance in the events of the German occupation.

But the reader must interpret its meaning for himself.

LA GUERRE